It wouldn’t be a stretch to add the name Costas Spiliadis to that group. With restaurants going strong in Montreal, Manhattan and Athens, Spiliadis’s empire also includes New York’s Marketa, a gourmet shop. And it doesn’t stop there. Plans are under way to open a new Montreal restaurant, two new Milos restaurants in the U.S., and a cooking school on the island of Kythira in Greece.

…Yet the project that seems dearest to the restaurateur is his cooking school. “The island of Kythira has become a second home to me,” says Spiliadis. “I have bought several 16th century houses on a UNESCO-preserved site that are in ruins, that I’m restoring to their original state. In the summer I’ll rent them, but in the winter they will make up part of a culinary school.

“It will be a holistic approach to Greek culture, with food playing a central role. Rosemary Barron (cookbook author and teacher) will head the school and we’re collaborating with Oxford University to bring in students from all over the world. They will go fishing, cultivate the land, learn about honey making, harvest sea salt … I want young people to go back to where they came from and spread the word on Greek culture and Greek culinary culture.”